August 8, 2017—Who Deserves Dunce Hats?

Critical national infrastructure protection “will require public-private cooperation and partnerships – that, in fact, the electric industry must in the future end their efforts to avoid, misrepresent, dismiss, and minimize EMP and its potential existential national consequences, and play a large role in EMP protection, as must several Departments of the government that have to date also avoided addressing EMP intelligently and effectively, including the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Energy, and begin drawing on the knowledge and experience held within the Department of Defense and the EMP Commission.”… Dr. William R. Graham, Chairman of the EMP Commission

I grew up in the era when “right and wrong” were easily understood and received their just deserts. There were winners and losers and we knew which side we wanted to join. Our “greatest generation” demonstrated that, especially when they went to battle in the last war in which we explicitly sought victory and won outright.

I learned some of “life’s most important lessons” in grade school when grades were earned, winners won and losers lost in a straight forward easily understood way. There were none of today’s “everybody wins” tripe taught to today’s “little darlins” . . . in an “educational” system where teachers have little means to instill discipline in their class rooms.

The “dunce hat” and an embarrassing seat for all to see was a reward for identified mischief and stupidity. Punitive measures at school were only a preview for what would be delivered at home — most dreaded was my father’s belt, but my mother also wielded a mean switch, which I had to go cut from foliage around our farm house. I guess that would now be considered to be “child abuse.”

Back then my parents paraphrased Proverbs 13:24 — “Spare the rod and spoil the child.”

Whatever, I think we should punish unruly students and dropouts, and also some of products of that failed system who are now our leaders, for their behavior and stupidity. I am reminded of wise words from Will Rogers, whose humorous, biting quotations still ran in the newspapers of my youth, though he died in 1935, the year before I was born. I like this one in particular “It ain’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know that ain’t so.”

For example, I wonder if President Trump’s National Security Advisor, Lt. General H.R. Master, doesn’t merit the “dunce hat” and a trip to a stool for all to see, given reports of his interview with MSNBC’s Hugh Hewitt, in which he reportedly refused to confirm recent comments by other officials who have stated North Korea’s recently tested intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) can reach any point in the United States.

Click here for a pertinent report on that discussion, including his clarification: “Really, whether it could reach, you know, San Francisco or Pittsburgh or Washington, how much does that matter, right? . . . It’s a grave threat.”

In my opinion, he would be absolutely correct, if by those words he meant the “grave threat” posed by the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) from even one of North Korea’s currently existing dozen or more nuclear weapons detonated above the atmosphere over the United States — a possibility that North Korea could deliver today.

These North Korean weapons have been tested with yields greater than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki almost exactly 72 years ago. And they could be “super EMP weapons” developed with the help of Russia and China.

But I doubt that is what he meant.

Indeed, I suspect that this now present existential threat from North Korea — and possibly Iran — to all Americans is not fully recognized at our nation’s highest levels advising the President and organizing the efforts of his National Security Council to safeguard our national survival.

They may believe the misguided reports by some in the intelligence community and others that North Korea still has to prove they have reentry vehicles before they will attack various U.S. cities.

But North Korea already has plenty of nuclear weapons that can now be carried by not only the recently demonstrated ICBM, but also on satellites first tested five years ago, to be detonated over the United States to produce an EMP that would shut down our critical civil infrastructure, especially the electric power grid” for an indefinite period — leading to starvation, disease, criminal chaos, societal collapse and the death of most American within a year.

We have no time to get ready for a future existential threat. It exists now — today!

To repeat—this threat is quite real. Moreover, it was made public almost a decade ago, and our leaders have done little if anything to counter it. They all deserve to wear “dunce hats” for all to see.

If we are to survive, those who do appreciate this threat must make plain to our leaders and to all Americans that they understand it is all too real, and that the “powers that be” are not only ignoring it, they are willfully understating it and blocking efforts to “provide for the common defense,” as our leaders are all sworn to do.

I can’t say whether General McMaster is willfully downplaying the threat — but he deserves a dunce hat even if he does not know about it, given his current responsibilities as the President’s National Security Advisor. He is widely touted as one of the most knowledgeable Generals around — should he not understand perhaps the most dangerous existential threat confronting us?

As noted in my message last week and earlier, the new White House Chief of Staff, Retired Marine General John Kelly, recognized the threat posed by EMP, cyber, and physical attacks to our critical infrastructure and stated that, “All these threats, in addition space weather, pose potentially catastrophic dangers to U.S. infrastructure, particularly our energy, transportation, and telecommunications networks, which are the lifeblood of our economy. Mitigating these risks to an acceptable level is vital . . .”

He left unfinished executing his commitment to deal with these threats at DHS. Hopefully, he will, as he promised then, “pay particular attention to these threats . . .” as White House Chief of Staff. At least he should be familiar with whatever DHS is doing to execute its role in responding to the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act (CIPA) passed last year and signed into law by President Obama. And I’ll wait to remove my assignment to DHS of an existing “dunce hat” until I learn more.

As he begins his important tour in the White House, I hope General Kelly gets thoroughly familiar with the existential threat to our nation’s critical infrastructure — particularly the electric power grid — and, so far, the Trump administration’s continuation of earlier administrations’ failure to deal with it. Perhaps General McMaster might join him in learning these important lessons.

I recommend that they both consider my last two messages (Click here and here.) and the fact that many government organizations they might think are reliable are failing them and the American people.

In my opinion, one of General Kelly’s top priorities should be to assure that the position of the President’s Science Advisor and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) is filled by someone who will take the EMP threat seriously.

During the Obama administration, that office began a program to address the “Natural EMP” threat from a major solar storm that will, for certain, one day occur. President Trump’s appointee should critically review that effort, which I understand is “low-balling” that threat — and doing nothing to counter the larger “Manmade EMP” threat. It currently deserves a “dunce hat.”

The Department of Energy (DOE) also deserves a “dunce hat” in part because of its poor interaction with the various regulatory bodies that are in fact undermining the viability of the electric power grid if exposed to this EMP and other threats. Moreover, its initial efforts to understand the manmade EMP threat is “reinventing the wheel” at taxpayer expense, to relearn lessons mastered by the Department of Defense (DoD) decades ago and applied to assure the viability of our strategic systems and their essential command, control and communications against a High Altitude EMP attack.

DoD deserves a “dunce hat” for permitting this travesty to continue. Moreover, the DoD has actually undermined the only competent moderating body within the federal bureaucracy, the congressional appointed EMP Commission.

In response, the House of Representatives actually proposes in its version of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2018 to dismantle the EMP Commission and start over — and the fate of that terrible proposal awaits Senate action when it returns after another of its extended vacations.

This week, the National Academy of Sciences deserves a “dunce hat” for getting into the act by proposing to publish a report entitled Enhancing the Resilience of the Nation’s Electricity System, which barely mentions the EMP threat — and what is included is terribly wrong, as the EMP Commission Chairman, Dr. William R. Graham, wrote in a letter to the Academy on August 6, 2017.

Click here for Dr. Graham’s complete letter, which includes his concern about the “inaccurate characterization of the EMP that would be produced by a high-altitude nuclear explosion and related risks, and the Academies implicit advice on protection strategies.” The Academies report characterizes EMP risk as “largely theoretical,” which is contrary to actual “data from both U.S. and Russian exo-atmospheric nuclear tests and over 50 years of Department of Defense (DoD) investment in nuclear EMP analysis, simulation, system protection, and test programs.”

Dr. Graham criticizes the Academies report that “dismisses electric power industry responsibility for protection strategies” and “deflects responsibility to the DoD,” which the Commission believes would be “a major, serious error in national policy.”

In spite of the DoD’s demonstrated poor stewardship in helping to protect the nation’s critical civil infrastructure, most particularly the electric power grid, Dr. Graham notes that such critical national infrastructure protection

“will require public-private cooperation and partnerships – that, in fact, the electric industry must in the future end their efforts to avoid, misrepresent, dismiss, and minimize EMP and its potential existential national consequences, and play a large role in EMP protection, as must several Departments of the government that have to date also avoided addressing EMP intelligently and effectively, including the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Energy, and begin drawing on the knowledge and experience held within the Department of Defense and the EMP Commission.”

To which, I say “Amen.”

Dr. Graham’s comments are consistent with my views and May 4, 2017 testimony before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which reports that I have given up on the Federal Government in countering this existential threat in my lifetime. Therefore, I seek to work the problem “to provide for the common defense” against the existential EMP threat from the bottom-up — and I am pleased to report that we are making progress in our Lake Wylie Pilot Study in South Carolina, happily with cooperation of Duke Energy and the local and state authorities.

More again for another time, but you might review my written testimony and Q&As for the record by clicking here and here. And for your amusement, I repeat last week’s cartoon, in which the E Field refers to the electromagnetic field threatening our survival produced by the EMP threat. We need to change this image related to today’s dunces with serious assessment and expedited corrective action.

Today, two days after the 72^nd anniversary of Hiroshima and a day before the 72^nd anniversary of Nagasaki, we are courting dangers far worse than we ever encountered before.

And we need to replace the “dunce hats” currently worn by a plethora of folks, especially in the Federal government, who are failing to live up to their oath to provide for the common defense.

Bottom Lines.

Figuratively speaking, lots of “govmt” folks deserve “dunce hats” and to be sent to sit in a visible spot wearing them for all to see.

On second thought, some folks should be fired, because this is a grown-ups problem — and they are failing to provide for the common defense as they have sworn to do.

Stay tuned.

What can you do?

Join us in praying for our nation, and for a rebirth of the freedom sought, achieved and passed to us by those who came before us.

Help us to spread our message to the grass roots and to encourage all “powers that be” to provide for the common defense as they are sworn to do.

Begin by passing this message to your friends and suggest they visit our webpage www.highfrontier.org for more information. Also, please encourage your sphere of influence to sign up for our weekly e-newsletter.

Encourage them to review our past email messages, posted on www.highfrontier.org, to learn about many details related to the existential man made and natural EMP threats and how we can protect America against them.

Click here to make a tax deductible gift. If you prefer to mail a check, Please send it to 20 F Street, 7th Floor, Washington DC, 20001.

E-Mail Message 170808